Knife attacker kills eight Chinese children in their beds

Chinese police began the hunt for a child-killer yesterday after a man broke into a school dormitory and stabbed eight pupils to death as they slept in their beds.

The murders are the most horrific in a recent spate of deadly attacks on Chinese schools which have alarmed the authorities and prompted fears among parents.

According to police, four pupils were also injured in the latest attack, which took place on Thursday night at the Number Two High School in Ruzhou city, Henan province.

The only sketchy report released by the state-run Xinhua news agency said a man broke into the dormitory and "chopped eight people to death".

There was no information about the victims, description of the suspect or explanation of a possible motive.

The China News Service said the attacker might have been a former student who had been expelled.

It cited a survivor as saying that during the attack, the man with the knife said: "Don't blame me."

Newspapers in Beijing say schools in the Chinese capital have begun to post guards, but it was not clear whether any additional security was in place at the school in Ruzhou.

The city of 920,000 people is about 750 kilometres (450 miles) south-west of Beijing. The city government website says coal mining is a major local industry.

It is the fourth unsolved attack in the past four months at either schools or daycare centres. The earlier assaults left one student dead and 42 injured.

In August, a certified schizophrenic man went on the rampage with a knife in a nursery school in Beijing, where he killed one child and injured 14 others as well as three teachers. The suspect was reported to be an employee of the school who had a history of mental illness.

The following month, a man armed with a knife, petrol and homemade explosives broke into a daycare centre in the eastern city of Suzhou and slashed 28 children before police stopped him.

Despite the arrests, police have not revealed the motives behind these crimes.

Many murders in China go unreported because they reflect badly on local governments and law enforcement authorities.

But the recent, apparently unconnected, attacks have caused a public outcry.

Such was the level of concern in September that the government of President Hu Jintao issued a nationwide order demanding that all schools hire security guards and pay greater attention to the safety of their children.

It is not known whether the dormitory in the latest assault was protected.

Courts have also imposed harsh sentences on those caught harming children. On Wednesday, local media reported the execution of a man who slashed 25 children with a kitchen knife.

No one was killed in that attack, but the judge ruled that the death penalty was warranted because the violence was "especially cruel."

The reason for the surge in knife attacks is not clear. They have taken place throughout China and involve attackers from different backgrounds.

But China's cities and towns seethe with grudges and personal feuds amid wrenching economic and social change.

Fatal bombings, mass poisonings and other attacks are reported frequently, usually blamed on people trying to hurt business rivals or seeking revenge in often minor disputes.